Human remains found on beach in Canada may be linked to 1800s shipwreck, police say
According to authorities this week, human bones found on a Canadian shore may be linked to a 19th-century shipwreck.
The Royal Mounted Canadian Police say that the exposed bones were discovered this past weekend on a cliff in western Prince Edward Island. According to investigators, the bones were found on Saturday in the West Cape in an area where human remains have previously been found.
“Police are investigating, and have not ruled out that the remains could be connected to a historical shipwreck burial,” the RMCP stated in a statement.
Additionally summoned to the scene, the coroner’s office is conducting an investigation.
According to RMCP Cpl. Gavin Moore, human remains were also discovered near the West Cape in the 1950s and 1960s, as reported by the CanadianThose human remains were of course a separate investigation [but] very similar to this one,” Moore said. “As it was reported at that time, it was believed that it was possibly connected to a shipwreck from the 1800s.”
Officials did not specify which shipwreck the human remains could potentially be from.
Local resident Rodney Wood told CBC that his father found remains in the area several times over decades.
“We didn’t even know it was a burial site until they first showed up, according to my father,” Wood said. “He said it was about 1950.”
While visiting the area with a CBC TV crew on Tuesday, Wood spotted another apparent bone exposed on the beach, which was also reported to police.
Paul Wood, who lives a few yards from the location where the bones were discovered this week, told CBC he anticipates finding more human remains.
“I just think there’s probably more bones to be revealed yet, as erosion occurs,” he stated. “I’m sure there will be more bodies discovered, I guess.”
On Canada’s coastlines, human remains from centuries-old shipwrecks have already washed ashore. According to a 2019 BBC story, specialists have verified that the 21 human remains found in Gaspé, Quebec, are from a shipwreck that occurred in 1847. According to the BBC, that ship sank off the coast of Cap-des-Rosiers in Gaspé after leaving Ireland, killing up to 150 persons.
